Best Buy shares rose 8% Tuesday as investors welcomed a positive report on consumer spending at a time when people were expected to be pinching pennies. The report from the nation's top electronics retailer also provided a preview of what the upcoming holiday buying season may look like.

Best Buy's product trends aren't a total surprise given the growing passion for smartphones like the Apple ( AAPL) iPhone and Google ( GOOG) Android phones. But one new item on the plus side was tablets, and in particular, Apple iPads.

Outlining what worked and what didn't in the second quarter, Best Buy says in U.S. stores there was "low double digit" increases in mobile phone sales and about a 5% growth in mobile computers including tablets.

Unfortunately, weak sales of TVs and video games more than offset the gains of the hotter products, said Best Buy.

The company also complained that shortages of Apple's iPad hurt the overall laptop performance as people went elsewhere for purchases.

"The decline was primarily driven by the impact of lost traffic associated with constrained inventory during the initial iPad launch which adversely impacted traditional mobile computing traffic," Best Buy said in a press release Tuesday.

To investors, the notion that shortages muted sales during the recently completed quarter suggests that full supplies could cause a meaningful upswing in the current period.

Best Buy shares were up $2.75, or 8%, to $37.40 in premarket trading Tuesday.